Attacking free trade is an oversimplification, and seems like a call for protectionism. I just don't see how that's the answer.
Here's a good opinion piece detailing some arguments against uncontrolled free trade:
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aZ9R3banWEgY
I'll quote one section to partly answer your question:
-- The sixth dubious assumption is that short-term efficiency leads to long-term growth. But such growth has more to do with creative destruction, innovation and capital accumulation than it does with short-term efficiency. All developed nations, including the U.S. (which was protectionist from the Founding Fathers until after World War II), industrialized by means of protectionist policies that were inefficient in the short run.
What is the implication of all these loopholes in Ricardo’s theory? That trade is good for America, but free trade, which is not the same thing at all, is a very dicey proposition.
There is an appropriate policy response. For starters, the U.S. should apply compensatory tariffs against imports subsidized by currency manipulation,
Read: Yuan
an idea that originated with the U.S. Business and Industry Council and was recently passed by the House of Representatives. Also essential is a border tax to counter foreign export rebates implemented by means of foreign value-added taxes.
The U.S. also needs tariffs on foreign goods and services that compete with existing and startup domestic producers, if only as bargaining chips to force other nations to play fair.
In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon set unilateral tariffs against Japan, Germany and other countries that refused to let their currencies strengthen. Far from setting off a trade war, this persuaded these nations to help rebalance the world economy cooperatively. There is every reason to expect the same outcome today.
Don't be sad. I have seen similar things in Brooklyn, ghosts buildings from when we were our own city, and entire swaths of once urban areas given over to wilderness. But from that comes new life and new ways of doing things. Greenpoint is full of hipsters who don't mind living in the shadow of burnt-out buildings, for example, and the attached neighborhoods are starting to come back(I would argue they never really went anywhere, just went into torpor when the manufacturing facilities left town). Something else will follow.New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.I hope so. It's just sad to see what once were beautiful buildings destroyed. I wasn't born when Detroit was at its height, but looking at this makes me feel pretty sick and sad.I don't see a Giuliani in Detroit's future. They keep electing mayors who are either amazingly corrupt or incredibly inept. And Michigan in general is even more business unfriendly than New York. They're going to have to have a huge sea change in the way they think in the Mitt State in general, and Detroit specifically, before they can even think about coming back.
Cleveland is next, by the way. Everyone that can is leaving, faster than any other city in America.
Guiliani was an important factor in what happened to NY, not the only one. I truly wish we could get those outside of NY to understand that. I personally hate the man to pieces.
I just wanted to note that you're quoting houstonderek here, but I haven't seen houstonderek post anything attacking free trade...?
Quite right. I didn't meant to suggest otherwise. I'm quoting him because he quoted my post expressing my doubt that free trade is to blame for our woes.
Sorry if that was unclear.
|
I just wanted to note that you're quoting houstonderek here, but I haven't seen houstonderek post anything attacking free trade...?
Wages, benefits, etc.And while what you say is true for cars, what about software? Call centers? Some products are inevitably less expensive to produce elsewhere. And while other factors come into play (political stability, language skills, etc.), the fact is the U.S. is simply at a permanent...
I have zero problem with free trade. I believe in global commerce. I have a huge problem with our politicians making the business environment here poison.
A lot of the issues you're (bugleyman) are discussing also are affected by our various tax and labor laws, regulations and varied other government brakes on business growth. Again, raw wages aren't the issue, the fact that corps don't have to hire a ton of tax, labor and regulatory attorneys and CPAs to comply with our laws has a large part in the decision to move call canters and tech support overseas. Indian peeps doing the tech support and call center stuff aren't making much less an hour, but they aren't getting the benes, we don't have to match their social security and medicaid contributions, there's no unemployment insurance (which employers here pay), Indian workers call in sick far less and do more work per hour, India doesn't have mandatory overtime pay, nor do they have an ever increasing minimum wage (which has gone up nearly $3 an hour just in the last few years), and, frankly, Indian people are far more polite compared to their American counterparts (at least in my experience) so the company is even providing better customer service in a lot of cases. Happy customers are regular customers, after all.
Devaluing the dollar (which I haven't brought up yet) is a ridiculous policy, and it's one we're pursuing full speed ahead. For one, it drives up fuel costs, as international oil prices are in dollars: make the dollar worth less, the price of goods goes up (inflation). Using food for fuel makes fuel prices go up, food prices go up, gas mileage go down and increases the costs of repair (ethanol is BAD for engines). Not to mention it is far more damaging to the environment than straight petroleum product (even environmentalists are screaming about this now - the real ones, anyway, not the ideologues).
(Man, there's too much to talk about. We're discussing literally millions of pages of tax code and regulations companies need to be aware of to function within the law)
Devaluing the dollar might have one small benefit, though. Maybe Chinese products will get more expensive and we can open up the domestic sweat shops again! Yay!
We are caught in a perfect storm of short sighted labor unions and blind government idiots.
I could go on and on, and I'll probably hit more points as the thread goes on, but I need to end this post before it gets too long without a spoiler tag.
|
|
Don't be sad. I have seen similar things in Brooklyn, ghosts buildings from when we were our own city, and entire swaths of once urban areas given over to wilderness. But from that comes new life and new ways of doing things. Greenpoint is full of hipsters who don't mind living in the shadow of burnt-out buildings, for example, and the attached neighborhoods are starting to come back(I would argue they never really went anywhere, just went into torpor when the manufacturing facilities left town). Something else will follow.New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.I hope so. It's just sad to see what once were beautiful buildings destroyed. I wasn't born when Detroit was at its height, but looking at this makes me feel pretty sick and sad.I don't see a Giuliani in Detroit's future. They keep electing mayors who are either amazingly corrupt or incredibly inept. And Michigan in general is even more business unfriendly than New York. They're going to have to have a huge sea change in the way they think in the Mitt State in general, and Detroit specifically, before they can even think about coming back.
Cleveland is next, by the way. Everyone that can is leaving, faster than any other city in America.
Guiliani was an important factor in what happened to NY, not the only one. I truly wish we could get those outside of NY to understand that. I personally hate the man to pieces.
I don't like him either, and his nearly Gestapo tactics used to clean up the city were way too heavy handed and insane, but, the dude did get results.
My point was, Detroit isn't going to elect anyone willing to do what it takes and fight the entrenched machine politics that have run Detroit pretty much since WWII.
I don't see why everyone is so upset. Didn't a floundering Detroit birth us RoboCop? The future is OCP!
(Remove tongue from cheek...)
|
|
Pretty amazing photos, sadly I thought of the Lone Wanderer and how many locations would be great for a Fallout movie...
BTW, what kind of Librarian would leave all those books behind and in such disarray!?! Libraries all over the US have programs to accept books from libraries-in-closing, and the Feds even have a system for redistributing funded library materials across the US to other funded facilities.
|
|
If American labor is so overpriced, why did Toyota shut down their California plant, but left their Texas plant running full speed ahead?Are you referring to the joint 50%/50% Toyota/General Motors plant in Fremont CA ... operational from 1984 until 2010 when GM pulled out completely (due to bankruptcy) and left Toyota holding the bag all by itself?
Toyota didn't bail because GM pulled out (which, by the way, wasn't GMs decision as GM was owned by the US Government at the time). Toyota ultimately bailed because they couldn't afford to pay union labor with the other business unfriendly policies the state of California made law.
The factory was set up to be an experiment so GM could learn Japanese management and production techniques, and very few GM cars were actually made at the plant. It wasn't a "50/50" venture, as you put it.
Interestingly, it is also the only union plant Toyota had in the U.S. They operate plants in five other states that are in no imminent danger of closing, and all of those plants are in "Right to Work" states with friendly business environments.
If the plant existed in any of those states, Toyota likely wouldn't be closing it (yes, that is speculation, but I think it is based on sound reasoning in this case).
What always cracks me up, in a moribund, melancholy way is how quickly and immediately the assumption is made that the Unions are the problem, when one could mathematically invalidate the notion by simple determination of CEOs, CFOs, and other such individual pay-scales cross-referenced across the sum of union employee costs. More to the point, for the supposed value and influence of the top-earners, theirs were the decisions that cost the company the most. The wages of the union members ere fairly high for many parts, but they were high for the simple fact that, before the technology improved, theirs was the work that was likely to result in maiming, disfigurement, and other forms of life-ruination. There is a need for balance of safety of work to scale of hazard-pay, of course, but to lay the blame on the union is naive at best, exceedingly cynical at worst.
And don't even get me started on the fraud and money-shuffling involved in many of the companies that HQ in Texas...
|
|
What always cracks me up, in a moribund, melancholy way is how quickly and immediately the assumption is made that the Unions are the problem, when one could mathematically invalidate the notion by simple determination of CEOs, CFOs, and other such individual pay-scales cross-referenced across the sum of union employee costs. More to the point, for the supposed value and influence of the top-earners, theirs were the decisions that cost the company the most. The wages of the union members ere fairly high for many parts, but they were high for the simple fact that, before the technology improved, theirs was the work that was likely to result in maiming, disfigurement, and other forms of life-ruination. There is a need for balance of safety of work to scale of hazard-pay, of course, but to lay the blame on the union is naive at best, exceedingly cynical at worst.
And don't even get me started on the fraud and money-shuffling involved in many of the companies that HQ in Texas...
Well, unions didn't give anything back after the labor became nothing more than pushing a button on an assembly line. And insisted that only Bob could push this button, not Ned. Ned had to push only that button. Plus, if Bob wasn't very good at pushing that button (or came to work drunk or high, or called in sick every other week, or a number of things non-union cats can't get away with), they couldn't fire him.
And insisted that if Ned had to be laid off for a few months, he should get 95% of his base 40 hr. pay to sit on his butt.
Yes, CEO salaries are obscene. Yes, they made some seriously bad decisions (many of which were made because of a lack of sufficient R&D funds because unions would block any serious labor saving upgrades to factories for the longest time). And, yes, they are to blame for some of the problems. But they aren't the only factor. And, to be honest, the ridiculous CEO salaries are a recent development, really. Like, late 80s/early 90s.
And don't get me started on corrupt union leadership. They make any shell games played down here look like child's play.
I don´t see free trade as a reason - if anything, free trade normally helps the industries. If it does not, the industry in question normally has serious problems, like products that are not competitive. There are two outcomes: either the products get competitive in short order, or the companies go bust.
The competitiveness of a industry has little to do with a city having that industry.
Free trade means that I can move (i.e) my Cummins factory to Mexico, because 90% of the labor needed is unskilled labor, or to any place that provides me low cost manpower, low taxes/no taxes or gives me incentives (paid by employees taxes); as long as that place has got enough infrastructures an there isn't a war ongoing there.
So, what to do? I would go for having the best skilled labor and not demanding ridiculous salarys (something very popular in the automotive industry). I'm sick of paying 15000 € for a crappy car because a guy that turns screws gets paid more than an senior engineer.
That's the rub (bold part). When you can be replaced by a robot or someone in a Third World country, you really shouldn't be asking for insane amounts of pay, and you really shouldn't be asking for 95% of that pay if you're laid off for whatever reason.
I am seriously amused by people who think the American auto worker should make $78 an hour for work a blind six year old corpse could do just as well.
How much should they be paid, then?
Well, unions are part of it. That we have the highest corporate taxes on the planet doesn't help, nor does state and local governments levying taxes on corporations for everything. And slavish adherence to labor laws, building specs that have zero to do with safety, environmental laws that put a minnow ahead of who knows how many workers and their families, unfunded mandates from the government for all sorts of things, amazingly...Sorta chicken / egg though....
Union membership originally proliferated in heavy industries and industries where injuries / costs were high. Now, with massively deregulated trade and with outsourcing so prevalent, those industries are and have been relocating to nations / labor pools with no such qualms about wages, safety, and low costs.
Unions, in an of themselves, do not necessarily drive away domestic jobs (see nurses and schools - where domestic supply/demand is mostly immobile because the "goods" created are intangible and not something that can be "built" in China). Of course, I'm not speaking to quality of the goods - simply pointing out that unions are not necessarily the cause for lack of domestic jobs.
I'm not a fan of unions, not by a longshot.... It's serious international trade, with developing countries with massive pools of cheap, disposable labor are the real cause for the lack of domestic jobs - and this also coincides with the post WW2 de-industrialization of the US/West.
---
I think, in the end, it's the almighty dollar that talks loudest, irrespective of the other issues at play (labor unions, workplace laws, etc). It is precisely what the devout Free Marketers hold up as the gold standard. Companies will chase lower costs, period. Union or not. Even if you factor in all the other intangible costs involved with emplying union workers, if (VERY hypothetically) a domestic union worker cost a company less in total and overall cost than a foreign non-union member, how do you think the company would lean?
The size of the finger you are pointing at the unions makes me wonder whether or not you are scapegoating them while minimizing the non-union side of the equation.
Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
Not just arabic families. Similar story with my non-muslim first unofficial girfriend who was russian. I miss her terribly.
|
|
Not just arabic families. Similar story with my non-muslim first unofficial girfriend who was russian. I miss her terribly.Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
For the record, Pakistani peeps aren't Arabs.
I don't see why everyone is so upset. Didn't a floundering Detroit birth us RoboCop? The future is OCP!
(Remove tongue from cheek...)
I was wondering when he was coming myself.
For the record, Pakistani peeps aren't Arabs.Not just arabic families. Similar story with my non-muslim first unofficial girfriend who was russian. I miss her terribly.Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
AAARRRGGH! Completely forgot that. That was a great way to start a fight in my old high school. Pakistani, not Arabic.
|
|
How much should they be paid, then?I don´t see free trade as a reason - if anything, free trade normally helps the industries. If it does not, the industry in question normally has serious problems, like products that are not competitive. There are two outcomes: either the products get competitive in short order, or the companies go bust.
The competitiveness of a industry has little to do with a city having that industry.
Free trade means that I can move (i.e) my Cummins factory to Mexico, because 90% of the labor needed is unskilled labor, or to any place that provides me low cost manpower, low taxes/no taxes or gives me incentives (paid by employees taxes); as long as that place has got enough infrastructures an there isn't a war ongoing there.
So, what to do? I would go for having the best skilled labor and not demanding ridiculous salarys (something very popular in the automotive industry). I'm sick of paying 15000 € for a crappy car because a guy that turns screws gets paid more than an senior engineer.
That's the rub (bold part). When you can be replaced by a robot or someone in a Third World country, you really shouldn't be asking for insane amounts of pay, and you really shouldn't be asking for 95% of that pay if you're laid off for whatever reason.
I am seriously amused by people who think the American auto worker should make $78 an hour for work a blind six year old corpse could do just as well.
They should be paid whatever the free market dictates. Mind you, the free market says government cannot protect union members if they go on strike, and that union members should go to prison for assaulting scrubs. Furthermore, the free market says that companies can just fire people that go on strike and replace them with people who are happy to work.
|
|
AAARRRGGH! Completely forgot that. That was a great way to start a fight in my old high school. Pakistani, not Arabic.For the record, Pakistani peeps aren't Arabs.Not just arabic families. Similar story with my non-muslim first unofficial girfriend who was russian. I miss her terribly.Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
Don't tell me the evil, insensitive, minority hating right winger white boy had to point that out to you! O_o
(That apparently being what all small, limited government proponents are according to CNN, NBc, ABC, CBS and MSNBC and at least 50% of the lefties on these boards...)
;-)
They should be paid whatever the free market dictates. Mind you, the free market says government cannot protect union members if they go on strike, and that union members should go to prison for assaulting scrubs. Furthermore, the free market says that companies can just fire people that go on strike and replace them with people who are happy to work.How much should they be paid, then?I don´t see free trade as a reason - if anything, free trade normally helps the industries. If it does not, the industry in question normally has serious problems, like products that are not competitive. There are two outcomes: either the products get competitive in short order, or the companies go bust.
The competitiveness of a industry has little to do with a city having that industry.
Free trade means that I can move (i.e) my Cummins factory to Mexico, because 90% of the labor needed is unskilled labor, or to any place that provides me low cost manpower, low taxes/no taxes or gives me incentives (paid by employees taxes); as long as that place has got enough infrastructures an there isn't a war ongoing there.
So, what to do? I would go for having the best skilled labor and not demanding ridiculous salarys (something very popular in the automotive industry). I'm sick of paying 15000 € for a crappy car because a guy that turns screws gets paid more than an senior engineer.
That's the rub (bold part). When you can be replaced by a robot or someone in a Third World country, you really shouldn't be asking for insane amounts of pay, and you really shouldn't be asking for 95% of that pay if you're laid off for whatever reason.
I am seriously amused by people who think the American auto worker should make $78 an hour for work a blind six year old corpse could do just as well.
Get ready for boom and bust economies then as a fickle public changes its mind on what it wants in it's products. Detroit would become par for the course, its eventual rebirth notwithstanding.
[EDIT] Or the recycled workforce that is replaced the instant it gets too old for working 11 hour days or for complaining about it. As usual we are at cross purposes: You don't trust the government/unions, I don't trust business.
Don't tell me the evil, insensitive, minority hating right winger white boy had to point...AAARRRGGH! Completely forgot that. That was a great way to start a fight in my old high school. Pakistani, not Arabic.For the record, Pakistani peeps aren't Arabs.Not just arabic families. Similar story with my non-muslim first unofficial girfriend who was russian. I miss her terribly.Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
Actually, he did, and I thank him for it. I do miss my one Pakistani friend in High School, she was really cool.
|
The reason in two words: Free trade.Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
Back then? Even with last years recalls, Toyota makes some of the best vehicles on the road.
Back then? Even with last years recalls, Toyota makes some of the best vehicles on the road.The reason in two words: Free trade.Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
I don't own a car, but I know if I wanted something to handle hairpin curves, I'd go get something from a mountainy area of Japan. Okay, MAYBE I watch too much Initial D. maybe.
|
|
I don't own a car, but I know if I wanted something to handle hairpin curves, I'd go get something from a mountainy area of Japan. Okay, MAYBE I watch too much Initial D. maybe.Back then? Even with last years recalls, Toyota makes some of the best vehicles on the road.The reason in two words: Free trade.Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
Mazda. I highly recommend Mazda.
Unless you're short enough to fit in a 97 Supra. If you are (I'm not at 6'1"), get that, they make Ferraris look silly in street racing.
Pretty amazing photos, sadly I thought of the Lone Wanderer and how many locations would be great for a Fallout movie...
BTW, what kind of Librarian would leave all those books behind and in such disarray!?! Libraries all over the US have programs to accept books from libraries-in-closing, and the Feds even have a system for redistributing funded library materials across the US to other funded facilities.
This blog talks about how some of the library books and other resources fell through the cracks (often despite employees' offers to volunteer their help).
Also upsetting in the slideshow is the photo of the pile of abandoned evidence in a police station, consistent with this report of someone finding abandoned student records, including psychological records, in abandoned schools.
I don't own a car, but I know if I wanted something to handle hairpin curves, I'd go get something from a mountainy area of Japan. Okay, MAYBE I watch too much Initial D. maybe.Back then? Even with last years recalls, Toyota makes some of the best vehicles on the road.The reason in two words: Free trade.Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
Mazda. I highly recommend Mazda.
Unless you're short enough to fit in a 97 Supra. If you are (I'm not at 6'1"), get that, they make Ferraris look silly in street racing.
I'm about 5'8 or so, so I think I'll go for that.
Wither Toyota's off road division? I know the first few trucks they made were laughable, but the more recent ones have been seen all over Brooklyn and even Manhattan. Some of them look even parkable.
Pretty amazing photos, sadly I thought of the Lone Wanderer and how many locations would be great for a Fallout movie...
BTW, what kind of Librarian would leave all those books behind and in such disarray!?! Libraries all over the US have programs to accept books from libraries-in-closing, and the Feds even have a system for redistributing funded library materials across the US to other funded facilities.
This blog talks about how some of the library books and other resources fell through the cracks (often despite employees' offers to volunteer their help).
Also upsetting in the slideshow is the photo of the pile of abandoned evidence in a police station, consistent with this report of someone finding abandoned student records, including psychological records, in abandoned schools.
That was appalling, although I understand that human lives often take precedent over books.
|
|
I don't own a car, but I know if I wanted something to handle hairpin curves, I'd go get something from a mountainy area of Japan. Okay, MAYBE I watch too much Initial D. maybe.Back then? Even with last years recalls, Toyota makes some of the best vehicles on the road.The reason in two words: Free trade.Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
Mazda. I highly recommend Mazda.
Unless you're short enough to fit in a 97 Supra. If you are (I'm not at 6'1"), get that, they make Ferraris look silly in street racing.
I'm about 5'8 or so, so I think I'll go for that.
Wither Toyota's off road division? I know the first few trucks they made were laughable, but the more recent ones have been seen all over Brooklyn and even Manhattan. Some of them look even parkable.
Dude, do you remember the old Toyota Land Cruiser (talking '60s here)? They were no joke.
The FJ is fairly serviceable off road, the newer Land Cruiser isn't. The Tundras are solid, better than anything but a Ford F150, I'd say (I have a soft spot for Ford pick ups, and old full sized Broncos). And they take the scree and rough West Texas terrain like a champ.
Oh, and the Tundras are made in Texas, so they're assembled by Americans, if that matters to you.
Cities die all the time for all sorts of reasons, economic, environment, politics, natural disasters, plague, war.
Rome went from a population of over 1 million to 10,000 in the middle ages.
|
|
Detroit went from over a million to nothing in less than 40 years.Cities die all the time for all sorts of reasons, economic, environment, politics, natural disasters, plague, war.
Rome went from a population of over 1 million to 10,000 in the middle ages.
For Rome, it wasn't much longer really. People had been vacating the city for centuries before the collapse of the Roman Empire when the capital of the Western Empire was moved further north to be closer to the Rhine and Danubian frontiers. By 410, when the Visigoths sacked the city, its population had dwindled. By the Vandal sack of the city in 455 there were few left.
Rome retained a ritual status, but by the time that Theodoric the Great led the Ostrogoths into Italy it next to empty. The sixth century saw cattle grazing in the forum. Power was in the north; Ravenna, Pavia, Milan, and the emerging Venice.
Later, in 546, Totila the Ostrogoth completely depopulated the city for 40 days during his war with Belisarius and the Eastern Empire. Rome stood empty, crazy huh?
|
|
Detroit went from over a million to nothing in less than 40 years.Cities die all the time for all sorts of reasons, economic, environment, politics, natural disasters, plague, war.
Rome went from a population of over 1 million to 10,000 in the middle ages.
For Rome, it wasn't much longer really. People had been vacating the city for centuries before the collapse of the Roman Empire when the capital of the Western Empire was moved further north to be closer to the Rhine and Danubian frontiers. By 410, when the Visigoths sacked the city, its population had dwindled. By the Vandal sack of the city in 455 there were few left.
Rome retained a ritual status, but by the time that Theodoric the Great led the Ostrogoths into Italy it next to empty. The sixth century saw cattle grazing in the forum. Power was in the north; Ravenna, Pavia, Milan, and the emerging Venice.
Later, in 546, Totila the Ostrogoth completely depopulated the city for 40 days during his war with Belisarius and the Eastern Empire. Rome stood empty, crazy huh?
The Roman story mirrors ours in so many ways. Started out as a plucky little Republic (like us), became an empire (our presidents, ever since Wilson, have been grabbing more and more power, and the 17th amendment, effectively robbing the states of control over Senators was passed - a weal analog to what happened to the power of the Roman Senate, but close enough for my weird purposes), stuck its fingers in everything (can we keep our noses out of other peoples' business?) and placated the masses with bread and circuses (NFL, American Idol, cradle to grave social programs).
All we need to do now is offer a way for non-Americans to serve in our military and become citizens and it'll complete the circle...oh, wait, the DREAM Act...
If American labor is so overpriced, why did Toyota shut down their California plant, but left their Texas plant running full speed ahead?Are you referring to the joint 50%/50% Toyota/General Motors plant in Fremont CA ... operational from 1984 until 2010 when GM pulled out completely (due to bankruptcy) and left Toyota holding the bag all by itself?Toyota didn't bail because GM pulled out (which, by the way, wasn't GMs decision as GM was owned by the US Government at the time). Toyota ultimately bailed because they couldn't afford to pay union labor with the other business unfriendly policies the state of California made law.
The factory was set up to be an experiment so GM could learn Japanese management and production techniques, and very few GM cars were actually made at the plant. It wasn't a "50/50" venture, as you put it.
Interestingly, it is also the only union plant Toyota had in the U.S. They operate plants in five other states that are in no imminent danger of closing, and all of those plants are in "Right to Work" states with friendly business environments.
If the plant existed in any of those states, Toyota likely wouldn't be closing it (yes, that is speculation, but I think it is based on sound reasoning in this case).
Toyota didn't bail. They found a new partner in Tesla Motors. The plant's still operational. In fact there are plans in front of the Fremont city board to expand the plant into the surrounding empty land.
It's still not the 50/50 venture you're accusing people of thinking it was. Instead of GM learning Toyota's techniques it's now Tesla leaning on Toyota's money and Toyota mooching off of Tesla's technology. So technically Toyota is even more invested in the plant now than they were with GM. It's supposed to add several thousand jobs to the area over the next 3 years.
The Roman story mirrors ours in so many ways. Started out as a plucky little Republic (like us), became an empire (our presidents, ever since Wilson, have been grabbing more and more power, and the 17th amendment, effectively robbing the states of control over Senators was passed - a weal analog to what happened to the power of the Roman Senate, but close enough for my weird purposes), stuck its fingers in everything (can we keep our noses out of other peoples' business?) and placated the masses with bread and circuses (NFL, American Idol, cradle to grave social programs).
All we need to do now is offer a way for non-Americans to serve in our military and become citizens and it'll complete the circle...oh, wait, the DREAM Act...
If find it interesting that Americans like to identify with Rome.. When I see very few similarities.
If you want a historical comparison I would say Democratic Athens is a closer fit. With demagogues and the rich twisting democracy for profit and glory at the expense of the average citizen. While the average citizen is culpable in their own downfall by willingly falling for the appeal to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes.
|
|
I never said it was a 50/50 venture. It only existed, at first, as a way for GM to learn new methods and for Toyota to experiment with an American factory. Toyota always produced way more cars under their name than GM did at that factory.
I'm glad Tesla stepped up for two reasons: California cannot afford to lose 40,000 jobs with as big a mess as they're in right now, and Tesla needs a way to get their car out in greater numbers so we can start getting away from combustible fuels.
Born in D, lived there til '85, live 4.5 miles from it now. My father and grandfather were there in the early union days. They saw it change into something different than what they fought for. My mother worked in the FBI throughout WWII, both in Washington and Detroit. My siblings still live in Metro Detroit. All 6 of them. Community meant something back in the day. As did duty and family. Nowadays 'the self' is the pinnacle of society, instead of being a small part of it.
Heard interesting theory over the holidays. Unfortunately I can't source it right now. Anyhoos, the theory was that the Fed govt, after WWII, wanted to spread out its industrial centers, and encouraged big business to set up shop around the country. Makes sense, as Detroit was a prime target for sabotage. The Arsenal of Democracy.
Add in the above cited factors, the decay of manufacturing, and a lot of city corruption and you get a recipe for decay.
It seems like everything was lined up against the neighborhoods. Even themselves. There are glimmers of hope here and there, but the city I was born in is gone. It's buried in poverty. Hopefully it will be reborn better, smarter, stronger.
BTW, the pics don't even scratch the surface. There are square miles of views like that. And square miles that don't even show a shadow of what once was. However, here and there you see a house or a block that looks like I remember them. Timeless, despite the odds.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
I live in suburban Detroit and while I definitely don't completely disagree with HoustonDerek I can say it's not squarely the union's fault. Did they ask for fantastic wages, sure they did! But the company has to agree to those terms. Now the Big 3 of the 70's and 80's didn't exactly make the best product in the world and they paid for that in the PR department, so much so that it's only now that people are finding US made cars as reliable and high quality as foreign automakers.
Corrupt politicians, you bet your sweet behind Detroit has them in abundance... but those days are dying. Many of those hustlers are in jail or being indicted by the feds. Things look up for Detroit, you just have to dig through the industrial brownfields to find the diamonds in the rough that are emerging.
But Ultra-conservative mindsets aren't the ones fighting for air up here. Small progressive, not liberal mind you, progressive thinkers and doers are rebuilding what may again be a Paris of the Midwest. It's gonna take time and vision, but Americans are nothing if not creative, innovative, and stubborn.
I generally disagree with pure captialists because capitalism gives no thought to the people. It's harsh and unforgiving, like nature. Hell the europeans think we're crazy the way we treat our own people. But as Humans we're supposedly smarter than the rest of the beasts and should be able to do better by each other. America and the whole world is really just caught up in the middle of the next wave of thinking. From Agrarian culture, to Industrial, now we're on the verge of something as completely different as working in a field is from working on an assembly line. We just can't see it clearly enough over the horizon to know whats coming.
Roman history says much about any country.As a Republic they achieved most of their victories, then, as a Republic, they put 100% of the Senate into the hands of a political class of rich senators that became in fact a powerful nobility. These senators promoted laws and wars that ruined the middle class and enriched the optimates even more.
After destroying all democracy and spread poverty over those who were tax-payers and mens of arms, nobody cared about a corrupted dictorship that called itself a Republic.
Three dictators later it became an Empire and few romans gave a damn... and they had reasons to feel like that.Now, we can compare that with what happened to many democracies in the XXth century and what is happening now. Too many sons of famous politicians in the government? Middle class loosing power? Absolute lack of faith in current Democracy? The future for the Western World doesn't look any good to me; at best I would say that everything grows, then degenerates, dies and is finally reborn.
I have to disagree with you Ike. Rome was an oligarchic republic with very little power allowed to the Plebs (masses) Rome was never a Democracy. Power was all ways in the hands of the Senate (who were aristocratic nobility not elected) during the Republic and moves by people such as the Gracchi brothers to reform the senate and the Republic ended in the deaths of the reformers. Even Sulla the greatest republican... was anti democratic it was he who put down Marius and his populists and had to break the republic to save it. It was also Sulla who showed the "dictators" how to become "kings" (Romans would never use the word king but thats what they were).
The empire did not truly flourish until Octavian became Augustus and while the Senate played a role it was the Army the controlled who would be emperor.
The Empire reached its greatest extent under Hadrian and it was only the western half fell due to plague, depopulation, barbarian settlement economic mismanagement and the exhaustion of the army.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire only fell in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Turks.
I fail to see how Rome = the US.
|
|
But the company has to agree to those terms.
Actually, without the government forcing the Big Three to agree to those terms, they more than likely wouldn't have. Without government telling the Big Three they couldn't fire strikers, the union would have gotten nada.
Coercion isn't free will, never was, never will be.
|
|
Roman history says much about any country.As a Republic they achieved most of their victories, then, as a Republic, they put 100% of the Senate into the hands of a political class of rich senators that became in fact a powerful nobility. These senators promoted laws and wars that ruined the middle class and enriched the optimates even more.
After destroying all democracy and spread poverty over those who were tax-payers and mens of arms, nobody cared about a corrupted dictorship that called itself a Republic.
Three dictators later it became an Empire and few romans gave a damn... and they had reasons to feel like that.Now, we can compare that with what happened to many democracies in the XXth century and what is happening now. Too many sons of famous politicians in the government? Middle class loosing power? Absolute lack of faith in current Democracy? The future for the Western World doesn't look any good to me; at best I would say that everything grows, then degenerates, dies and is finally reborn.
I have to disagree with you Ike. Rome was an oligarchic republic with very little power allowed to the Plebs (masses) Rome was never a Democracy. Power was all ways in the hands of the Senate (who were aristocratic nobility not elected) during the Republic and moves by people such as the Gracchi brothers to reform the senate and the Republic ended in the deaths of the reformers. Even Sulla the greatest republican... was anti democratic it was he who put down Marius and his populists and had to break the republic to save it. It was also Sulla who showed the "dictators" how to become "kings" (Romans would never use the word king but thats what they were).
The empire did not truly flourish until Octavian became Augustus and while the Senate played a role it was the Army the controlled who would be emperor.
The Empire reached its greatest extent under Hadrian and it was only the western half fell due to plague, depopulation, barbarian settlement economic mismanagement and...
You're being way too literal. We're being much more metaphorical. There are more than a few parallels in the two histories, and, frankly, our "plebes" have no more power than the Roman plebes enjoyed.
|
|
Hell the europeans think we're crazy the way we treat our own people.
Maybe the European masses think this, but their leaders understand their social programs are unsustainable. And, judging from the riots over the last year in Spain, Belgium, Britain, France, Portugal and Greece (as all of those nations took steps to right fix budgets), the people aren't too fond of reality...
RPG Superstar 2013
|
What always cracks me up, in a moribund, melancholy way is how quickly and immediately the assumption is made that the Unions are the problem, when one could mathematically invalidate the notion by simple determination of CEOs, CFOs, and other such individual pay-scales cross-referenced across the sum of union employee costs. More to the point, for the supposed value and influence of the top-earners, theirs were the decisions that cost the company the most. The wages of the union members ere fairly high for many parts, but they were high for the simple fact that, before the technology improved, theirs was the work that was likely to result in maiming, disfigurement, and other forms of life-ruination. There is a need for balance of safety of work to scale of hazard-pay, of course, but to lay the blame on the union is naive at best, exceedingly cynical at worst.
And don't even get me started on the fraud and money-shuffling involved in many of the companies that HQ in Texas...
Do some research about the union pension and insurance liabilities of Michigan and California. Check out how many MILLIONS of dollars per day California spends on retiress.
Top earners might make a nickel per share in large corporations. THeir decisionmaking makes or breaks your stock price, and sometimes a great manager controls the bleeding in a volatile climate. If the personalities at the top of these alrge corportations didn't believe in them, their shareholders wouldn't pay them as much. Same thing with athletes: you get into teh end zone, you get paid as long as the stands are full and the tv deal is sweet. You don't fill the seats and sell the beers, you don't get paid.
There's some level of corporate greed, sure. But by and large, greed is a term that you can't hold down objectively - one company tryingto seal a legacy in an industry might be ruthless in competition, but might be integrous and generous in its dealings. One company might do everything possible to maximize stock value, but then an evil oil company might have a million teachers and firefighters as pension shareholders. So..who's greedy? Businesses exist to make money. THey provide jobs. WHen the business climate makes it cost more to move to another country and ship your goods back to your own profit cetners than to pay taxes, you're gonna move. If you don't make a decidion like that, you're gonna get fired.
Cut or elminate taxes for businesses, and watch the jobs come back. Alow large companies to reorganize and cut ties with predatory union contracts and unfunded pension liabilities, and some companies will survive.
And, on the topic of Detroit and the auto industry, I will never buy another Chevy. Been a Chevy guy my whole life, but the fraud and lies of this adminsitration and GMC are unforgivable. Maybe the most dishonest government behavior since Social Security. Or Medicare. Or confiscating income tax each paycheck. All really ineficient and dishonest moves. Grrr.
Going back to Superstar threads now that I'm mad.
OMG all that deco architecture....just wrong
/cry
|
RPG Superstar 2013
|
I don't want to be misunderstood. Taxation isn't the problem by itself, and it isn't a solution by itelf. But if we make the US a tax haven, fewer jobs leave and some jobs will return. Obviously, when you start talking about taxes, you must also include discussion about controlling spending, treatment of existing debt, currency values, etc. Even then, once you start getting into inflations, for example, there are aditional dynamics, like the velocity of money in this or that market. Once you ahve crreated policy that makes inflation likely, how do you avoid it with corrective policy? If you succeed, you change the rate at which money moves locally, and that makes the smaller economy realize the inflation, which some markets absorb better than others.
Anyhoo...when conservatives talk about free economies and deregulataion and reducing taxes, they NEVER mean for one proposal to exist in a vacuum. COnsider runing a small business and telling your franchisee that everything will be okay as long as you can just kep the marketing going. But then you ignore sevice, product, recruitment and other issues.
We absolutely should not hear anyone endorsing 'just cut taxes', but all serious folk agree that some level of tax reform is a big part of the solution. Disagree? An administration that promised to end the tax cuts they just fought very hard to extend talked them up as a critical part of the solution. Weird, huh? When WE bought GM and then sold it back to supportive interests, part of the package to ensure the company's survival was that a) the US government would replace thousands of cars with the new models the government wants car companies to make. Nothing is more comical than a government constuction firm having to replace gas trucks with the obsolete-of-the-line Chevy Bolt. 25 of Chevies sold this year are fake purchases for government sectors that didn't need or want them. When fake customer base and fake bailout money (used to "repay" the taxpayer for the initial GM bailout - double the interest for nothing in return!), the newest part of the deal became a huge tax holiday. Was it to the tune of $40B over ten years, I think? SO other companies are greedy for wanting to lower taxes, but when the government buys out GM, it's the only way to ensure survivability.
Taxes are part of the solution. Certainly meaningful energy reform andother small or medium business reforms will help other issues. You mentioned domestic shipping which is clearly suffering right now. But controlling gas prices and mileage mandates are a part of that solution. You might not agree how to get to that solution, but it is clearly part of the problem and requires attention.
So, no - tax cuts are not the only solution, but they are an important part of the solution.
|
|
Cut or elminate taxes for businesses, and watch the jobs come back. Alow large companies to reorganize and cut ties with predatory union contracts and unfunded pension liabilities, and some companies will survive.You believe this? For real?
That wonderland, Europe, has much lower corporate taxes than we do.
Hmmm. There are some practical problems. I mean no taxes on business. I wonder who pays for the roads? Most businesses depend on them, either directly or indirectly.
See above, also, our fuel tax more than pays for any road repairs, or it would if it didn't get constantly funneled to other purposes.
What about schools? I mean short term it is ok, but in about 20 years you might have a problem, what with the next generation not being able to read and all.
Schools are generally paid for through property taxes. And, we spend more per student than any country in the world on education, yet rank 25th in performance. Money isn't the issue.
Wait, I got it. Everyone depends on private schools or something right?
No, seriously, stop. You seem quite uninformed on this issue.
Look, just about any company you can think of relies on things provided by the government. Whether it be roads, security, enforcement of laws, any of a myriad of other things. Heck try routing a private road, or a power line if you don't have something like a government taking care of it for you.
People used to build private roads and charge tolls until government got involved. Oh, and they, with their own money, built the railroads that connected this country coast to coast.
Or a mob of huns to clear the way.
????
These jobs aren't coming back. Not if the tax rate were dropped to zero (which is pretty darn close to the case for a lot of American Companies).
Again, what part of "highest corporate taxes" did you not understand?
The wage differential is just too great between even a minimum wage American and any number of other countries. Unless something absolutely has to be done in place here, there are a lot of places to get it done cheaper. You might argue about transportation costs, but it is cheaper to ship from coastal china to say NY, than it is to send it by train from Kansas City.
Apparently you've never worked in the shipping industry...
Then we have things like visa workers, though that kind of last century. Still important in some fields like nursing and what remains of the "tech" industry, but it isn't really a big deal anymore.
We have those workers because our education system, the one we spend more money per student than any other country in the world (other than Switzerland, and that's a tie), has failed our children.
Accounting, law, many aspects of medicine (stuff like reading MRI's and X-Rays can all be outsourced to other countries.
Are you serious? Accounting, maybe. The rest? I don't think there are many schools over seas that teach American law, and there's the pesky "you have to pass the bar in the state you practice in" thing. and judges tend to like the lawyers to be physically present in court. The other two are just ridiculous, unless you're intending on sending the patient overseas. England's NHS outsources their medical transcripts to India, and it's a mess. So many mistranslations occur that it is actually a danger to patients.
I mean come on? It's all the fault of TAXES?
Yep. Taxes.
Taxes here are very reasonable for a developed economy.
Sure they are. But we tax every dollar earned in this country seven ways to Sunday. And we pay the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
If you lowered taxes nationally to zero, the current trends hollowing out the US economy will continue. It's simply more profitable to do things somewhere else and sell the product whether a good or service here.
You are aware that every dollar handed to the government is a dollar not being invested, right? Bureaucracy eats up quite a bit of that money (waste), and the rest is very inefficiently distributed. A big reason it is more profitable to manufacture overseas and ship back in is the corps need to get away from the heavy tax and regulation burden here to make a decent profit.
Sooner or later the whole thing will become untenable, and changes will be made. What that leads to I have no idea. But things go on like they always have, until they can't, then they don't.
Amazingly, this nation did quite well for 130 years before government started grabbing money (16th amendment). We had a solid industrial boom, our nation wasn't in debt, and money was actually worth something. Government right now is killing us by allowing the Fed to devalue our currency (one of the factors in the oil price rise, which is VERY bad for business - that shipping thing you're not familiar with, not to mention the increased cost of plastics, lubricants, and a host of other products made from petroleum), adding more layers of business expense during a very soft, unstable economy (health care) and bailing out and propping up very poorly run companies (TARP, "stimulus package", cars for clunkers, taking over GM, etc...).
"Too big to fail" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If it's "Too Big To Fail", break it up like they did with AT&T. Don't keep a bloated potential nightmare functioning.
Seriously, you didn't make any points at all that are supported in any way by fact.